Summary
Benjamin is a self-motivated developer with over 4 years experience in Ruby on Rails and the web. His excellent written and verbal communication skills, combined with a passion for learning and working with new technologies means he contributes more than just code to the team.
Objective
To work in a team-oriented position that will provide me with analytical, creative and professional challenges in Ruby on Rails and software development.
Consultant, Cogent Consulting
October 2009 – Present
Codeyak
I’m currently working on adding features to Codeyak.
PrintSoft Development
Lead Software Engineer
May 2007 – October 2009
While enhancing and maintaining our existing Rails app, I designed and created a new Rails application, running on JRuby. The application uses Flex to provide a rich WYSIWYG interface for designing printed documents. Some of the other technologies used are: jQuery, HAML, RSpec, Cucumber and Apache FOP.
I have been a strong advocate of Scrum and agile practices, not only within my team, but also to the company as a whole.
As well as coordinating my team, I was required to liaise with and provide support to staff in our other offices (Germany, UK, USA, France and Czech Republic) and often had to deal directly with customers around the globe to help them integrate our Rails apps with their existing infrastructure.
Software Engineer
Jan 2005 – May 2007
I initially worked as a junior developer on our large legacy C++ app, however, in my spare time I was exploring Ruby and Rails.
In March 2006 the company had an idea for a new product, a web-based collaborative system for editing and managing fully personalised documents. I was given the opportunity to take this project on as my own, so using Rails I created the initial version of what is now known as WebDirect.
WebDirect was very well received and the team grew from just me, to three developers and a full time tester. As a team we successfully implemented various XP practices such as pair programming, continuous integration, collective code ownership and test driven development.
IT Administrator
Feb 2002 – Jan 2005
While studying at University I was able to work part time as an IT administrator.
My roles involved:
- Creating and maintaining various Linux based servers for the office IT infrastructure
- Providing IT helpdesk support to office staff
- Writing and maintaining numerous Python scripts to streamline the IT processes
During this time, I also worked for a two month period in Germany at the PrintSoft Munich office.
betterplace.org
June 2008 – July 2008
betterplace.org is a small startup company in Berlin, Germany. They used Rails to create an online donation platform, where 100% of your monetary donations reach the intended cause. An ex-colleague and friend was working for them and asked if I could contract to them for a month to assist with their large workload. I was involved in adding new features to the platform such as Groups and Campaigns.
Various
2001 – 2002
My passion for the web and development meant that during my schooling, in my spare time, I created websites for various local small businesses. This required me to listen and communicate effectively with the client to establish their needs. Then, in an iterative process I would design, develop and ultimately deliver the finished site. The technologies I used for these sites were: HTML, JavaScript and PHP.
Education
Bachelor of Computer Science, Monash University, 2007
Caulfield Grammar School, Wheelers Hill, 1996-2001